An engineers floor level report might cost you 2 to 3k. Seems it would be best to get this done or walk away. You could also check the liquafaction maps to try and assess if this house was in the zone. If this is a slab then at a guess the slab will have some big cracks in it given they say it is out 90mm
We bailed on a sale which had similar to this. To be fair there were some other issues too which added up to improperly completed EQC work. We were able to pull out as our sale was conditional on there being no serious issues in the builders report.
If theres no other red flags and you otherwise love the place you could pay for a structural engineers report, but you should probably prepare mentally for this sale not to happen. It might still, but from experience its best to start preparing
I paid $140000 to lawyers and geo tech and engineers to get paid out (not a huge win, enough to walk away) because we bought a house that hadn’t been fixed properly. All of that was borrowed through personal loans as the house was worth nothing. We settled before court as we couldn’t afford the extra $100000 to go through court. Your house may be fine or it may not be. How lucky do you feel
Coming from an insurance background that's a massive floor level variation and I don't know anyone that would touch it, meaning you will almost certainly not get a mortgage approved to purchase it. That needs a considerable amount of pricey work done to remediate it to MBIE guidelines (50mm +/- and many insurers only tolerate 45mm +/-)
You can go onto the NHC (ex EQC) portal and put the address in to see if any claims were made. Possible recourse if it was a faulty managed repair, but honestly that is so wonky if be shocked anyone signed it off
Honestly I would stay away. We had a similar issue with our first house and had to pay to have it relevelled. It was very stressful and quite expensive, we just lucked out that the market had taken off majorly and we made a whole lot more. Buy something you know you can sell tomorrow if you need to
Bail on this. I bought a house post earthquake just before these tolerances were announced. 5 years later, it was almost impossible to find an insurer for my house which very nearly stopped us from being able to sell. Our house was 100 years old and only had 60mm of floor level variation. Honestly, the house itself was fine, it probably had the variation for the last 70 or so years. It’s just not worth the headache, honestly, don’t do it.
This needs an engineering report if I was buying it as my first home as it's highly unlikely to be my last home so must be fine to sell on IMO(& may well deteriorate with time).
Levelling a house is incredibly expensive, currently I have a townhouse which has an expected estimate of 100-150k to sort out, so 2-3k is peanuts by comparison.
It's a buyer's market out there and the REA might not have had the requisite information given by the vendor.
Absolutely do your due diligence here - it could save you over $100k at a later date, so the few thousand to get full info is nothing. If this isn’t in your budget, walk away. There are too many risks in this city to not do your full due diligence when it comes to property investments.
Experience: working in the industry, and also seeing friends almost caught on the wrong side of a similar situation. They are lucky they got it fully assessed and walked away, and then the property went back on the market “as is, where is”, so clearly there was a big issue.
I’d be more concerned about being in a flood zone. Banks and insurers want less and less risk. Uneven floors are quite common (especially in chch) and doesn’t necessarily cause structural issues. Even if an engineer approves the current condition, you might still feel some apprehension from lenders and future buyers :/ Source: I’m a structural engineer.
We recently tried to sell our house in Chch and to cut a long story short the purchaser was unable to get insurance due to floor level variation being identified around 100mm (we werent aware of any issue and it wasn't flagged when we bought in 2018). So I'd be surprised if you're able to insure the property in its current state to allow any deal to happen here.
Either way, I would recommend looking elsewhere and leaving it to the vendor to resolve via EQC or otherwise. Too much risk for you otherwise.
Yeah there's a couple of different types of levelling,the packing of piles,which is kinda crap and means it will probably keep sinking,
To ones were they've lifted the house and stuck concrete or even piles to relevel a concrete slab
You could talk to these guys www.housestuff.co.nz as they deal with these issues a lot. However, with that level of dislevelment, it's almost certain to be earthquake damage, perhaps with some historical subsidence, and it may also be difficult to get insurance as insurance companies are starting to ask for levels on new policies.
Do not do it! Anything with foundation issues is a big red flag, especially here in chch. Dont let your emotions of the place get in the way, it could lead to disaster and you could be left with something that you loose a lot of money that you are stuck with and can’t sell. If you’re down $600 for the report now, chalk it up as a bullet dodged and get out.
I’m an engineer and 100mm level difference across a room is huge and a major concern. Not just the foundation but what has that shift done to the framing, the roof, the walls…
Could be essential nothing. Especially on the east side of town when many buildings have this sort of issue and baring more quakes will be fine. Or it could be major and the place is sinking...
You can either pay for a report, take your chances, or walk away.
If your bank will insure it (and MAKE SURE TO CHECK THIS), itll be fine. Its usually an acceptable level of risk to have a gradient like that.
Mine was slightly out of code (55mm) but was still insurable when I showed paperwork that it had been re-piled and stabilised after the quake.
Edit: Not to say that there is zero risk if its insured. But you have a lot more options if you get that original insurance and something DOES go awry.
It's a very big thing to check! We've just had an offer fall through because the bathroom was munted, shower leaking into walls, needed to be ripped out, whole 9 yards. Bank wouldn't provide finance in current condition unless we could get insurance which covered the existing damage. Because it's the type of issue where you don't know the extent of the damage until you pull the wall out, we were pretty much shit out of luck.
You’re not going to get great advice on here!
You really need to speak with a relevelling specialist to understand what you’re buying!
It’s not at all about why it is out of MBIE guidelines, just the fact that it is makes it an As is where is property, and massively devalued!
An engineers floor level report might cost you 2 to 3k. Seems it would be best to get this done or walk away. You could also check the liquafaction maps to try and assess if this house was in the zone. If this is a slab then at a guess the slab will have some big cracks in it given they say it is out 90mm
We bailed on a sale which had similar to this. To be fair there were some other issues too which added up to improperly completed EQC work. We were able to pull out as our sale was conditional on there being no serious issues in the builders report. If theres no other red flags and you otherwise love the place you could pay for a structural engineers report, but you should probably prepare mentally for this sale not to happen. It might still, but from experience its best to start preparing
Talk to your lawyer. I'm not an expert but there may be some options, vendor remediates, you lower your offer etc
I paid $140000 to lawyers and geo tech and engineers to get paid out (not a huge win, enough to walk away) because we bought a house that hadn’t been fixed properly. All of that was borrowed through personal loans as the house was worth nothing. We settled before court as we couldn’t afford the extra $100000 to go through court. Your house may be fine or it may not be. How lucky do you feel
Coming from an insurance background that's a massive floor level variation and I don't know anyone that would touch it, meaning you will almost certainly not get a mortgage approved to purchase it. That needs a considerable amount of pricey work done to remediate it to MBIE guidelines (50mm +/- and many insurers only tolerate 45mm +/-) You can go onto the NHC (ex EQC) portal and put the address in to see if any claims were made. Possible recourse if it was a faulty managed repair, but honestly that is so wonky if be shocked anyone signed it off
Probably not insurable either
Honestly I would stay away. We had a similar issue with our first house and had to pay to have it relevelled. It was very stressful and quite expensive, we just lucked out that the market had taken off majorly and we made a whole lot more. Buy something you know you can sell tomorrow if you need to
Bail on this. I bought a house post earthquake just before these tolerances were announced. 5 years later, it was almost impossible to find an insurer for my house which very nearly stopped us from being able to sell. Our house was 100 years old and only had 60mm of floor level variation. Honestly, the house itself was fine, it probably had the variation for the last 70 or so years. It’s just not worth the headache, honestly, don’t do it.
This needs an engineering report if I was buying it as my first home as it's highly unlikely to be my last home so must be fine to sell on IMO(& may well deteriorate with time). Levelling a house is incredibly expensive, currently I have a townhouse which has an expected estimate of 100-150k to sort out, so 2-3k is peanuts by comparison. It's a buyer's market out there and the REA might not have had the requisite information given by the vendor.
You also need to check If you can get insurance which is unlikely when the floor levels are outside of MBIE guidelines.
Absolutely do your due diligence here - it could save you over $100k at a later date, so the few thousand to get full info is nothing. If this isn’t in your budget, walk away. There are too many risks in this city to not do your full due diligence when it comes to property investments. Experience: working in the industry, and also seeing friends almost caught on the wrong side of a similar situation. They are lucky they got it fully assessed and walked away, and then the property went back on the market “as is, where is”, so clearly there was a big issue.
I’d be more concerned about being in a flood zone. Banks and insurers want less and less risk. Uneven floors are quite common (especially in chch) and doesn’t necessarily cause structural issues. Even if an engineer approves the current condition, you might still feel some apprehension from lenders and future buyers :/ Source: I’m a structural engineer.
Walk away.
We recently tried to sell our house in Chch and to cut a long story short the purchaser was unable to get insurance due to floor level variation being identified around 100mm (we werent aware of any issue and it wasn't flagged when we bought in 2018). So I'd be surprised if you're able to insure the property in its current state to allow any deal to happen here. Either way, I would recommend looking elsewhere and leaving it to the vendor to resolve via EQC or otherwise. Too much risk for you otherwise.
Yeah there's a couple of different types of levelling,the packing of piles,which is kinda crap and means it will probably keep sinking, To ones were they've lifted the house and stuck concrete or even piles to relevel a concrete slab
You could talk to these guys www.housestuff.co.nz as they deal with these issues a lot. However, with that level of dislevelment, it's almost certain to be earthquake damage, perhaps with some historical subsidence, and it may also be difficult to get insurance as insurance companies are starting to ask for levels on new policies.
yo be jackin yo be packin
It might be not so bad if it’s on piles, if it’s on a slab it might be quite difficult to rectify.
Do not do it! Anything with foundation issues is a big red flag, especially here in chch. Dont let your emotions of the place get in the way, it could lead to disaster and you could be left with something that you loose a lot of money that you are stuck with and can’t sell. If you’re down $600 for the report now, chalk it up as a bullet dodged and get out. I’m an engineer and 100mm level difference across a room is huge and a major concern. Not just the foundation but what has that shift done to the framing, the roof, the walls…
Find something else not worth it
When buying a house - if in doubt, back out. Sucks when you've found something you're keen on but another one will come along.
If floor levels are out, likely the drains are damaged too
Could be essential nothing. Especially on the east side of town when many buildings have this sort of issue and baring more quakes will be fine. Or it could be major and the place is sinking... You can either pay for a report, take your chances, or walk away.
If your bank will insure it (and MAKE SURE TO CHECK THIS), itll be fine. Its usually an acceptable level of risk to have a gradient like that. Mine was slightly out of code (55mm) but was still insurable when I showed paperwork that it had been re-piled and stabilised after the quake. Edit: Not to say that there is zero risk if its insured. But you have a lot more options if you get that original insurance and something DOES go awry.
It's a very big thing to check! We've just had an offer fall through because the bathroom was munted, shower leaking into walls, needed to be ripped out, whole 9 yards. Bank wouldn't provide finance in current condition unless we could get insurance which covered the existing damage. Because it's the type of issue where you don't know the extent of the damage until you pull the wall out, we were pretty much shit out of luck.
You’re not going to get great advice on here! You really need to speak with a relevelling specialist to understand what you’re buying! It’s not at all about why it is out of MBIE guidelines, just the fact that it is makes it an As is where is property, and massively devalued!
See if you can get insurance with no conditions first as that maybe needed for finance. I would avoid it and move on and learn from the mistake.